According to Media Week, Development Hell, Factory Media and Dennis Publishing are all potential buyers.
Although the price is going to have to be cheap for anyone to take on Arena, beause it will require a radical redesign and relaunch rather than the endless tinkering it has suffered at Emap as its circulation has spiralled ever downwards.
Development Hell, which has already snapped up Mixmag from Emap, looks the most likeliest buyer. People there are familiar with the title and they already have The Word. It could be another chance to invent a grown-up magazine for men. It would be an interesting move although parting the small football stadium full of Arena readers (say, a packed Fulham) from the acres of female flesh that the title provides could have consequences. It would be a brave move all the same.
No surprise that larger publishers are steering clear and I would be surprised if Dennis, with its track record of dumping James Brown's magazine Jack, goes for this.
It was an odd appointment to put Giles Hattersley from the Sunday Times in charge in March with his total lack of magazine experience. At the Sunday Times, he had been chief interviewer and a feature writer.
Maybe they gave him a few months to see what he could do, but really it appears more likely that Emap was always set on offloading Arena after it parted company with its last editor, Will Drew, immediately before it issued another poor ABC.
For July-December 2007, the title reported a period-on-period decline of 13.9% to 34,556 copies. Its year-on-year figure dropped 29.9%. The future for Arena now looks bleak.
With Arena gone, maybe Emap will press ahead with its rumoured launch of a free magazine for men following in the footsteps of Sport, which seems to be doing very nicely. That could certainly be a winner.
Gordon Macmillan
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